Asia Cup, SL vs Ban: Five things we learned from the game

In the opener of the Asia Cup 2018, Bangladesh won the toss and opted to bat in the sweltering heat of Dubai. Soon they were reduced to 2-2, but they showed a lot of character as a batting unit and all the other batsmen played around Mushfiqur Rahim, who scored at a rapid pace even in the middle overs.

Malinga bowled fizzy yorkers and slow cutters throughout his wonderful spell of 10-2-23-4. Rahim’s career-best ODI score under tremendous pressure took the Tigers to an excellent total of 261.

Chasing 262, Sri Lanka showed no maturity and their inexperienced batting line-up kept losing wickets against some disciplined bowling by the Bangladesh pacers. Dilruwan Perera showed some fight but it was too late by then and Sri Lanka succumbed to a heavy defeat as they were bundled out for 124.

Here are the 5 things we learned from the match:

#1 Rahim’s calmness and composure under distress

Mushfiqur Rahim has been Bangladesh’s most reliable middle-order batsman for some time now but his record against SL was poor. But, this knock against the Lankans was not only his career-best knock but is also be one of the best hundreds by a Bangladesh batsman in recent years. Sri Lankan bowlers were very high on confidence when he came out to bat with both the openers dismissed cheaply.

But, he used all his experience and knew which bowlers to attack and whom he should be careful about. It was outstanding awareness of the situation from Rahim and it took Bangladesh to a fighting total of 261.